They deserve some NBA basketball, Ray Allen is trying to bring it to them, at least for a night. Sports Illustrated has the details.

A charity game, spearheaded by Boston Celtics guard Ray Allen and embraced by a litany of other players with ties to Seattle and the now-defunct SuperSonics, is in the works for this summer.

“I thought it was appropriate to do something for the city, to thank the fans for more than 40 years of support, and to show the NBA that Seattle is still a viable market for the NBA,” Allen said.

Detlef Schrempf is helping pull this together. (Is there a cooler throwback jersey than the Sonics Schrempf jersey?) Scheduled to take part are Jason Terry, Jamal Crawford, Brandon Roy and others. Lenny Wilkens may even come back and coach (it does not count in the record chase though).

The game may also be a place where Gary Payton can get his number retired. It should be, but Payton is not going to have the ceremony done in Oklahoma City because he has no ties there. He wants it done in Seattle.

It should be. The fans there got screwed. (Oklahoma City, that is not a slight at you. You were the beneficiaries. You voted to tax yourselves so an insanely rich man could build an arena on the cheap, but if you’re good with that largess then so be it. You have the great young team. But that doesn’t mean owners and politicians didn’t screw Seattle fans.)

This needs to come to pass. There are a lot of hurdles to overcome, from finding sponsors to a lot of people in the city still being pissed at the NBA. But rather than a memorial, this could be a celebration. A reminder that Seattle is a good basketball city. Something worth celebrating.

Oklahoma City traded for Victor Oladipo out of Orlando to be their third scorer, behind Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. It didn’t exactly work out that way, Durant bolted town and when Westbrook went off Oladipo was looking for a place to fit in.

That place turned out to be the Pacers.

Oladipo has been playing like an All-Star this season with Indiana, and last week he was key in snapping Cleveland’s 13 game win streak, then turned around and dropped 47 points on Denver. For the week he averaged 35.7 points a game, shot 45.7 percent from three, plus grabbed 7.7 rebounds per game.